Deep Tissue

Jagjaguwar / Brah;
2010

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For the guys in Oneida, the joy of repetition will never fade. The Brooklyn-based psych-rockers' best work-- hypnotic sidelong compositions like "Sheets of Easter", or their absurd two-hour-long triple LP Rated O-- helped set the current standard for underground-rock-as-endurance-test, with pulsing keyboard and guitar figures that stretched out to oblivion.

People of the North, a long-running but rarely glimpsed side project founded by drummer Kid Millions and keyboardist Bobby Matador, holds fast to that same philosophy: If something is worth doing once, then it's worth doing a thousand times in a row. But Deep Tissue, the band's debut record, is a little bit easier to digest than Oneida's heady output. For one thing, it's more concise. With four songs running just 36 minutes, Deep Tissue can be enjoyed in its entirety without taking a mid-album bathroom break.

Beyond that, it's pretty much business as usual for the duo. When it comes to incessant robotic pounding, Millions could stare down most drum machines. Matador uses one hand to hold down a static organ pulse and the other to dial in the spacey psychedelic jewelry. People of the North played their first gigs in 2003, right around the time that Oneida shifted its sound from MC5-inspired riff-rock to brainwave-flattening psych. So it's not totally surprising that the two projects would draw from similar inspirations-- the eerie ambience and austerity of pre-punk bands like Suicide and Silver Apples, in particular.

People of the North's take on that kind of minimalism is even more severe than its big brother band's. Instrumental album opener "Tunnels" hums along on a single nervously pulsing chord with only the periodic squeal of feedback to break up the music's measured flow. The metered chug that drives "Summer Leaves" is more than a little reminiscent of an idling lawnmower. The band takes it easy on "The Vastest Island", but the song's B-horror-flick-worthy synths and droning vocals preserve the album's overwhelmingly paranoid mood. Millions and Matador deserve some credit for being able to bottle up that jittery energy again. They've been playing the same thing, literally, for the last seven years. But on Deep Tissue at least, it's a schtick that's worth repeating.